years grow back
by Jukebox Hound
Summary: For a long time that was the snapshot Sam carried of his brother. Teen!chesters.


**Author**: Hades' Phoenix**  
Pairing**: Technically none, but you can probably see my Wincest bias.**  
Rating**: PG-13 for language.  
**Summary**: For a long time that was the snapshot Sam carried of his brother. Teen!chesters.**  
Word Count**: 706****

Note: Part of a longer story that may or may not ever be finished. Title from Sully Erna's song "7 Years" for no reason other than I happened to be listening to it. Unbetaed.

* * *

**years grow back  
**

It was hot in South Carolina during the summer, but then again, it was always hot in South Carolina, didn't matter if you were in the capital or a Buttfuck, Nowhere little town like Newberry. Hot and humid like the bathroom after a shower, just as suffocating, the town just as small and confining. Mid-August and fourteen-year-old Sam had taken to wearing little more than jeans so old and scuffed they'd worn thin and, in some places, completely through. His skin turned nearly as brown as a hazelnut. Didn't take long for Dean to start sticking leaves and jay feathers and shit in his hair and calling him a changeling, _raised by wolves, Sammy, you look more like something out of _The Jungle Book _than my dorky kid brother_.

Got so hot that when Dad was out hunting some vengeful spirit or other, Dean stood over Sam's spread-eagled body in the yard and lightly kicked him in the knee. Get up, bitch, he said, silhouetted against the blazing sun and cornflower-blue sky. Sam wanted to tell him to fuck off, but since his tongue had welded itself to the roof of his mouth he flapped a limb in Dean's general direction instead. So Dean said, Get the fuck up or I'll pour honey on you and laugh when the fire ants chew off your dick.

At that point it was easier to just drag himself to his feet than argue, which is how Sam came to be standing in front of the Impala with its hood propped up and Dean messing around with a roll of tinfoil and a white plastic grocery bag.

Dude, what're you doing?

Shuddup and watch, Sammy.

I knew you liked this car more than was healthy.

Says the brat who stood up Stacy McPherson in eighth grade because he forgot a library book. I hope you don't get papercuts on your balls.

At least I'm not gonna get monoxide poisoning.

Shut your smart mouth and check this out. Dean laid a sheet of foil over a section of the engine, set down the roll, and reached into the plastic bag to pull out a package of bacon. Hold this, he said, passing over the bag, and flicked open his pocket knife to pull the bacon apart and lay it over the foil.

Oh my god are you _serious_.

Dean ignored Sam as he finished laying out the bacon and then reached into the bag for a small aluminum pan, which he balanced on the engine.

Oh my god you _are _serious, said Sam as Dean cracked a couple eggs into the pan. With the heat and the metal it didn't take long before the eggs were yellowing and firming, the bacon browning, and Sam couldn't help an incredulous, _Could _you be any more of a hick, Dean, _Jesus._

But he was also laughing because it was just so stupid, all they needed now was a bathtub in the yard for a hot tub or a toilet bowl for a planter box and they'd be the perfect punchline for a _You know you're a redneck if_, pull out some beers and a couple rifles from the trunk and they'd be fucking set. Sam laughed and laughed as Dean looked on with this soft expression in his eyes, sweat pooling in the small of Sam's back and the smell of grass and car engine and bacon strong in his nose.

And wouldn't you fucking know it but it worked, just like so many of Dean's idiotic ideas, tasted almost as good as though they'd cooked in the kitchen. I, Dean declared through a mouthful of eggs and bacon, am a goddamn genius. And he grinned, utterly unselfconscious of the food in his mouth or the grease on his arms, the dirt spotting his ragged shirt or the fact that he hadn't worn a fresh set of clothes in almost a week. Sam, who never felt like he fit his own skin these days, was suddenly breathless.

For a long time that was the snapshot Sam carried of his brother; grinning over the open hood of the Impala, the freckles burned dark across his nose and his hair tipped golden-yellow from the Carolina sun.


End file.
